Christmas Aftermath
by Colubrina
Summary: After packing away her Christmas decorations, Hermione heads down to the pub for dinner and a pint. A packed room results in her sharing a table with Draco Malfoy. ONE SHOT.


Hermione closed the lid of what she hoped was the very last box of Christmas decorations. It was a bit grim, decorating her own flat. By herself. Alone. Just her and her cat. That hadn't stopped her. Ron could move on, she could be uninvited from Burrow parties, and she could have to hang ever fairy light herself, but she was not going to let him ruin the pleasure she took in Christmas.

She wasn't.

Anyway, her cat hadn't liked him. She should have listened to that.

She leaned against the wall and ran her eyes around the room. Tree, down. Stockings, put away. Garland, in a bag ready to take down to the alley for the rubbish collection on Tuesday. She was pretty sure she'd gotten it all, and she would treat herself for all her hard work to a meal out in the pub. And a drink. Not because she was the slightest bit melancholy. Harry was engaged to Ron' sister. It made perfect sense he'd go to parties with them. People had their own lives, their own friends, and it wasn't as if she minded being alone. She _liked_ solitude. She got more done when no one was bothering her.

She pulled herself off the wall, said goodbye to the ball or orange fluff ignoring her from the coach, and went down to get dinner. The pub was warm and cheery and the bartender gave her a little wave as she tucked herself into a booth in the back corner. She liked this place. The food was good, and if it was more crowded than usual tonight, well, she supposed she wasn't the only one who'd decided that she didn't want to cook tonight.

The crowd got thicker. The waitress put a bowl of beef stew and a pint in front of her, and Hermione felt the tiniest bit of guilt she was taking up a table all by herself when so many people were standing around the bar, juggling drinks and baskets of chips while they waited for a table to open up. That guilt turned to a strong desire to hide when an all-too-familiar blond head made its way through the crowd. Draco Malfoy. She knew he'd moved into the neighborhood, which was annoying enough. They'd met on the street a few times and exchanged the sort of polite things adults who hadn't liked one another as children said.

 _The weather was wet._

 _Oh yes._

 _Good thing I brought an umbrella._

 _Always good to think ahead._

 _Have a good one._

 _You too._

She could handle that level of interaction. If they kept it right there, at impersonal civility, she'd never have to demand things like _how could you_ or _why did you_. Not that he'd answer her.

She looked down, hoping not to catch his eye, hoping to avoid another round of discussion about the weather, but when she risked a glance up, he was standing right at the edge of her table. It was too impossibly rude not to tip her head toward the opposite bench, not when this place was so full, so she did. The trap of societal conventions was too real.

"Busy tonight," Draco Malfoy said as he slid into his seat.

"Yes," she agreed. This was awful. How quickly could she eat and escape?

"Good stew here," he said.

"The best."

The waitress brought him a bowl of his own, and a glass of wine, and, worse, another pint for Hermione. He ate here often enough they knew him. That was just great. And now she had more ale to get through before she could leave without it looking awkward. "Have a nice Christmas?" she asked.

Malfoy shrugged, but under that polite geniality, Hermione saw a sudden flare of misery that he squelched so quickly she thought she must have been mistaken. "It's the happiest time of the year, isn't it?" he asked.

It was her turn to shrug. "I suppose," she said. Her parents, safely rescued and their memories restored, wanted nothing to do with her. _Betrayal_ , they'd called it. _We can never trust you again_ , they'd said. She would have done anything to keep them safe. It had been a war. Their lives had been in very real danger. She'd tried to explain, but her father had very politely shut the door in her face. "I enjoyed it when I was a child a bit more. Hard to keep that magic going as an adult."

"Quite," Malfoy said. He looked down at his hands and then said, the words almost mixing up they came out of his mouth so quickly, "I-would-like-to-apologize-to-you."

Hermione set her spoon down in her shock. "I'm sure there's no –" she began.

"Oh, there is," he said. "I was horrid to you as a child, then let the..." He stumbled and stopped, then tried again. "I let the Death –"

"You don't need to say this," Hermione said. For all she'd thought about the opportunity to ask him _How could you_ , now that the opening was here, she wanted more than anything for him to be quiet. Everything about that time was terrible. It had taken everything from her – from so many people – and she didn't want to look back at it. She wanted to eat her stew and go home to her flat, alone.

Except she didn't. If she stood on her floor, looked at her bare walls, at the places picture of family and friends should go, she'd start to cry. She'd done everything right. Why didn't she have any friends to spend Christmas with? To spend New Year's with? She'd smiled at Molly and learned to make her wretched cottage pie and she'd loved Ron since they were teenagers and it had all fallen apart and Harry had picked the Weasleys.

"It's fine," she said now to Draco Malfoy, the person who would eat with her because the pub was too crowded to sit anywhere else. "We can let the past go."

"It was my parents," he said. The words were a near whisper and filled with so much pain her heart clenched. "He said he'd kill them. I would have done anything, but in retrospect –"

Hermione reached across the table without thinking and grabbed at his hand. He stared at her in obvious shock as she tightened her grip. "We all did things we regret," she said.

"You didn't let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts," he said.

"No," she said, but she didn't let go, and he didn't try to pull his hand away. They sat like that for so long it became uncomfortable, and then she had to lean back, had to let him go. Her hand felt cold away from his, and she began to sip at her ale slowly, asking him simple questions about his life as they ate. He wasn't working. No one would give a job to a former Death Eater, no matter how good his N.E.W.T.s were. He'd just recently moved out of his family home. It was odd being alone. He'd tried to decorate for Christmas but hadn't known how. His mother had always had a floral company do the whole house.

"We used to hang the decorations and sing," Hermione said. "My parent collected them for years. It was strange to have to go to a shop and buy things."

"Didn't they save any for you?" Draco asked.

"We aren't speaking," she said. She looked down. "Or, rather, they aren't speaking to me."

"I'm sorry."

She shrugged. "They haven't forgiven me for… I wiped their memories, you see. So they would move away. To keep them safe from –"

"From people like me."

There wasn't much she could say to that because it was true.

"He would have gone after them," Draco said. "You did the right thing."

"They don't think so."

This time it was Draco who reached across the table to rest his hand on hers. She laced her fingers through his and smiled a bit wanly. "Anyway," she said. "Here I am, decorations down, having dinner."

She turned, meaning to try to catch the waitress' eye, to ask for another drink, to extend this night a little longer. Draco Malfoy let out a little laugh and plucked something off the back of her jumper. "I think you missed one," he said.

He had a little spring of mistletoe in his hand. It had died. The leave had withered to a dull green, and the white berries had shriveled. It had been pretty when she'd bought it over a month earlier, and the red ribbon tying it together had seemed festive rather than limp and sad. "Something got a ride down," she said, trying to laugh. "Wanted to come to dinner with me, I guess."

"Don't put it in the stew," he advised. "Mistletoe can be deadly when you eat it."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said.

He held it for a moment, then raised his hand so it was above his head. "I mean," he said, "we shouldn't let it go to waste. Bad luck or something."

She rolled her eyes but leaned across the table to give him a peck on the cheek. She miscalculated, or he turned at exactly the wrong moment, and her lips brushed across his. They were soft, despite a scruff of hair on his cheeks, and opened in a started 'Oh'.

She sank back down into her seat, blushing.

Draco Malfoy was staring at her. Then he set the tiny plant down with immense care, stood up, and made his way around the table so he could slide in next to her. She swallowed hard and could feel her throat bobbing as he placed hands on either side of her face. "Say yes," he murmured.

She did, and this time instead of an accident, their mouths met with cautious, careful purpose. She could feel goose pimples rise all along her spine as her tongue met his, as she slid her own hands into his fine, fine hair. Something she hadn't known was tense within her relaxed, and the part of her mind that wasn't reeling in shock that she was kissing Draco Malfoy – kissing him _in public_ – noted that _this_ was what kisses seemed like in books. This losing of herself. This urge run her hands over his skin. This sense that she'd found someone. She'd always thought of kissing as wet and a little unpleasant but she'd been wrong. With the right person, it was marvelous.

"Get a room," she heard someone in the pub say, and she pulled away from him with sudden, sharp embarrassment.

His eyes were dilated, and she could see the pulse pounding in the base of his throat. "I can pay the bill?" he asked.

She nodded. Bill paid, mistletoe abandoned, she led him up to her flat. This wasn't over. This wasn't done. Maybe the _in public_ part was done, but not the rest. Not tonight. Not, she suspected, ever.

Mistletoe might be deadly when you ate it, but a kiss could be just as deadly. If you meant it. Hermione unlocked her door and, before she even had it shut again, Draco pushed her up against the wall, the length of his body pressing against hers. She wasn't naïve. She knew what he wanted. "Tell me yes again," he whispered, and she looked into his eyes. So grey. So lonely. "Tell me you mean it."

"Yes," she said. She tugged his head to hers until only a hair's breadth remained between them. "I mean it." Then there was no space at all between them. Not then, and not for the rest of the night.

In the morning, she discovered her cat liked him. A lot.


End file.
